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Abstract
This dissertation investigates the effects of TV watching on children's skills, their leisure consumption behavior in the United States, and activity substitution. Comprising two chapters, this research offers valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and parents striving to optimize children's leisure activities and promote holistic development. The first chapter explores the impact of TV watching on children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills. This research enhances our understanding of how television interaction affects children's skill development, revealing nuanced effects across demographic groups. Using data from the Children Development Supplement (CDS) from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this study describes children's leisure consumption, focusing on TV watching. The study then uses a control function approach to reduce selection bias and examine the effects of TV watching on skills. By analyzing children with zero TV viewing hours and their skill variations, this method clarifies the influence of unobservable factors on skill development. I find that each additional hour of TV viewing negatively impacts children's non-cognitive skills while exhibiting no significant effect on cognitive skills. Moreover, by examining differences based on grade, income, and sex, the study shows that TV's negative impact on non-cognitive skills is especially marked among middle-school children and those from higher-income families. In the second chapter, I use the same methodology and data to understand the patterns of substitution between TV watching and other activities. The findings highlight that children have spent less time on leisure activities and more time on extra-curricular activities, substituting away from other types of leisure to watching more TV. I find that children substitute one hour of TV with less sleep, class time, and homework. I also analyze heterogeneous effects for different grades, income level, and sex.